


going viral

by helloshepard



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Crack Treated Seriously, Fade to Black, Going Viral, Internet Famous, Other, Pop Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 00:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16459715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: Venom shows up in some of Eddie's videos. The Internet takes it about how you'd expect.





	going viral

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the post in question: https://carnivorcarnival.tumblr.com/post/179441194054/imagine-if-eddie-ever-did-start-doing-film-news
> 
> (Though I did read the post again, and realized I'd gone off on my own tangent. But really. Would tumblr do anything else? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)

“Oh no.” Eddie said. “Oh _no.”_

Venom was curled up in Eddie’s chest, his presence against Eddie’s ribs and heart a comforting weight. He stirred only when Eddie poked himself in the side, forming a head with way too many teeth to snap at Eddie’s hand. Eddie ignored Venom’s irritation and pointed to the screen.

“Buddy.” Eddie managed. Venom narrowed his eyes as he examined the screen.

 ** **It’s me!**** Venom squirmed under Eddie’s skin, entirely too pleased with himself.

Eddie groaned and scrolled up, reading the clickbait headline once more.

_10 SPOOKY IMAGES - - YOU WON’T BELIEVE #7_

“You had--I had…it had to be _chocolate.”_

Venom murmured his assent. A tendril emerged, taking control of the touchpad and Venom zoomed in on the blurry photo.

It was Eddie at Fruition Chocolate Works, in front of a table displaying every single kind of chocolate the company produced. Eddie had been doing a piece on the chocolate industry, wrapping up his investigation with a short blurb for small-businesses dedicated to fair trade chocolate. He _did_ recall leaving the store feeling more full than when he’d arrived, but had chalked that up to the obscene amount of samples Venom had insisted he try. He hadn’t noticed the small black pseudopod emerging from his wrist to swipe a piece of dark chocolate. Apparently his editors hadn’t noticed it either, and now it was making the rounds on the Internet. Granted, it was the fake-news, clickbait-y rounds, but it was still _there._

Venom preened at the image, obviously pleased with himself. He slid back into Eddie’s side, slithering up Eddie’s spine to wrap himself around Eddie’s shoulders.

“You should not be pleased.” Eddie said. “This is not good! Not good, Venom!”

 ** **We are bonded.**** Venom said simply. ****On many planets it is considered an honor to be bonded to Klyntar. Plus, I was hungry.****

“Not here!” Eddie exclaimed. He saved the article and closed his laptop. “And if you were that hungry you should’ve told me.”

 ** **I did.**** Venom said. ****You were not eating fast enough.****

Eddie sighed.

“Okay. We’re lucky.”

Venom made a vague, questioning gesture by poking the back of Eddie’s neck.

“These sites are pretty much bogus,they’re here to get ad money and track your browsing habits. No one under the age of fifty puts much stock into them.” Eddie said. “So the chances of anything coming out of it are pretty minimal. It could be written off as a shadow, a trick of the light.

Annoyed, Venom slipped out of Eddie’s skin to fix him with a flat stare, a sight marred only by his perpetually grinning mouth. Eddie ignored the Klyntar’s irritation, giving Venom a soft pat on the jaw as he stood up.

“Let’s go to bed. The Internet’ll still be there in the morning.”

* * *

Once was an anomaly, easily chalked up to Venom slowly making a space for himself in Eddie’s life.

Twice…well, twice was becoming a pattern.

Eddie rubbed his eyes furiously, as though he could wipe away the headlines.

“Do you know how much _that fish cost?”_

Of course Venom knew; he knew because Eddie knew, and he also knew Eddie knew Venom was feeling absolutely no remorse.

****Five thousand of your ‘dollars’.** **

Eddie muttered something under his breath.

 _“Why_ did you eat it?”

 ** **It was weak and sickly. Pathetic.**** Venom said. ****Weaker than the Izox.****

Normally, Venom namedropping some alien species he’d encountered before was more than enough to distract Eddie from whatever he was scolding the Klyntar about.

Eddie looked at the Cracked article. He looked at Venom’s grinning jaws. He looked back at the Cracked article.

_6 Crazy Theories that Might Actually be True_

“Eddie Brock, best known as the host of the _Eddie Brock Report,”_ Eddie read aloud. “Has been sighted twice with what appears to be black ectoplasm on his wrists.”

 ** **Ectoplasm?**** Venom was quiet as he absorbed Eddie’s understanding of the word. ****I am not a ghost.****

“You’re an alien.” Eddie said. “Because that’s __so__ much better.”

Venom huffed, bumping his head against Eddie’s neck. Eddie tried to ignore him, but Venom was as bad as Mr. Belvedere. Worse, actually, because at least Mr. Belvedere could be distracted with something that wasn’t human brains or old sitcoms.

 ** **Read us the rest.**** Venom suggested, unhelpfully.

“You know how to read.” Eddie retorted. Venom nuzzled Eddie again, all warmth and soft goo.

****I like it when you read aloud.** **

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“You sure know how to flatter a guy.”

Venom chuckled. He settled back into Eddie’s chest, content to listen to Eddie’s voice and feel the vibrations of his throat and vocal cords.

“The continuation of his show,” Eddie said. “Coincides with an uptick in headless bodies being found in the San Francisco area and reports of a massive black creature patrolling the Bay area at night.”

Eddie made a note to start investigating Venom’s twice-weekly jaunts around town.

 ** **Not done yet.**** Venom said. Eddie bit back a smile at the symbiote’s sleepy voice. Venom didn’t _sleep,_ exactly. Every three weeks or so he would settle down in Eddie’s chest and do the alien equivalent of hibernation for a day or two. He had been resisting rest for the last week, determined to remain alert with Eddie. It had been a rough few days, compounded by a resurgence in Eddie’s nightmares-slash-sleep paralysis. Eddie was flattered Venom wanted to stay awake for him, but no one could resist sleep forever. Not even Venom.

“Tumblr user ajaxxxx-091 theorized these two events are not unrelated ,” Eddie continued. “That somehow Eddie Brock has taken on a Superman-like persona; reporting by day and fighting crime at night. Is it a deal with the devil? Or just an example of confirmation bias?”

****Confirmation bias?** **

“When you try to make two unrelated events mean something together.” Eddie offered. An overly simplistic explanation, maybe, but Venom was barely aware of his surroundings anymore, and had curled up tightly in the space between Eddie’s lungs and his heart.

****Oh. Okay.** **

* * *

Then, barely two weeks later, it was The Onion.

Not an article about them, exactly, but close enough; there was the stock photo version of Eddie, hands clasped in front of a camera. The headline:

_Local Man Registers Alien as Service Animal_

For once, Venom seemed appropriately outraged. He writhed under Eddie’s skin, making the man twitch uncomfortably.

****I am not a service animal!** **

_“That’s_ what you’re mad about?”

****Yes!** **

“Priorities, man.” Eddie ran his fingers through his hair, feeling a small bump Venom hadn’t gotten around to healing. At Dan’s insistence, he had gone down to the hospital for a PET scan. It had been fine, until it wasn’t, and Eddie had banged his head on the floor as Venom struggled to stay bonded to Eddie. As his finger brushed the bump, Venom got to work, smoothing over the swollen flesh with a gentle nudge. “We’re going viral.”

Venom preened.

* * *

While Eddie slept, Venom browsed the Internet. His sitcoms had given way to paid programming an hour ago, and while he normally wouldn’t turn up his nonexistent nose at any sort of television, he had seen the Slap Chop infomercial before. Last week, he had discovered reddit. He mostly kept to the news subreddits, both diligently upvoting any articles attached to Eddie’s career, as well as correcting anyone who thought his host was not a capable journalist. Eddie’s detractors were few and far between on reddit, which was good. Venom was going to need to create another account if this one kept getting banned.

But tonight, someone had sent him a message.

Venom waffled over waking up Eddie to help him answer it. Eddie could understand human words far better than Venom--and that understanding was doubled when the words were __written,__ meant to be taken at face value (except when they weren’t), all sterile loops and lines, with no emotions or feelings or memories to give them context and intent.

Venom hated words. He loved hearing _Eddie_ speak, but Eddie was not u/beebesboobies.

u/beebesboobies: so…I know you’re like the biggest eddie brock stan on this site? Wanted to know what you thought of symbrock.

Venom considered the not-question-question. He had never heard of ‘symbrock’, but if it was tied to Eddie somehow, he needed to know about it.

u/readyeddie: symbrock?

Venom settled against Eddie’s chest as he waited for the reply, a formless puddle of black ooze, only expending enough energy to keep Eddie’s phone from falling. Beneath him, Eddie snored.

He didn’t have to wait long.

u/beebesboobies: someone on tumblr made a post saying eddie brock was infected with one of those life foundation aliens? The things that anonymous leaked the files of? And thats what’s been popping up on his videos lately. The thing that ate the goldfish. Kind of like the whole clark kent/superman thing?

 _Interesting._ Eddie felt Venom’s pulse of excitement and mumbled something in his sleep before turning over onto his side. Venom slid in the opposite direction, dragging the phone to rest against Eddie’s back. He decided to go with outright denial.

u/readyeddie: that’s stupid.

A moment later:

u/beebesboobies: I’m just the messenger here, man. Its just--

Venom ignored whatever else u/beebesboobies had written. He opened the tumblr app (downloaded without Eddie’s knowledge) and examined the feed.

Any instinctive panic of being __discovered__ quickly faded as Venom realized that not only was #symbrock a _thing,_ it was a popular _thing._ He examined blurry photos and gifs of Eddie with Venom’s tendrils in the background, reaching for some sort of snack or new texture he hadn’t felt except through memories _or_ to see if Eddie’s editors would notice (they never did, and Venom decided they were _lucky_ their job was to simply alter videos. If their jobs entailed actually keeping Eddie safe and secure, well. Venom would have ‘fired’ them long ago.). The tumblr members had even spotted him at the Bridge last week, a protective shadow over Eddie’s shoulders as his human spoke in _words,_  words layered with emotion and memories and context that Venom could understand as easily as Eddie breathed.

These typed words were difficult, layered with meaning Venom could not hope to decipher without Eddie, but the pictures…the pictures needed no interpretation.

If Venom were capable, he would have blushed. As it was, Eddie blushed for him, and Venom made sure to memorize the new and __creative__ interpretations of his abilities. Eddie would be impressed. Probably.

Thoroughly amused, Venom decided to attempt to decipher one of the posts--not the novel’s worth of words u/beebesboobies had referred to, but the supporting posts, of which there were many.

bymuki: I like how we’ve collectively decided symbrock is soft and wholesome

t0geth33r: filthy symbrock on main…i love

syyyymbrockie: LIKE this post to have eddie brock in your bed tonight. REBLOG to have the monster with him

reveredchantry: 3 days ago: no way eddie brock is possessed by an alien that's too much for even tumblr. today: EDDIE BROCK AND THE ALIEN ARE MARRIED. I SAW THEM BEHIND THE DENNYS. 

purrmaid: and now we’ve got symbrock to finish out 20gayteen

my-bl0g-88: check out my WEIRD G1RLS ready for Y0U! CLICK 21+ 0NLY

r76-ishere: am I the only one shipping symbrock???

Venom poked Eddie in the side.

****Eddie. Wake up.** **

Venom’s host stirred, opening one eye to look at the glowing numbers of his alarm clock.

“Buddy. It’s four in the morning.”

****Explain this. Translate it for us.** **

Venom shoved the phone in Eddie’s face. Eddie squinted at the abrupt change in brightness. Venom nudged Eddie’s hand impatiently, eager to understand whatever these humans were babbling about.

“It’s…” Eddie trailed off, burying his face in the pillows. “Oh man. We are so dead.”

 ** **I will not let anything happen to us.**** Venom nudged Eddie again. ****What do these words mean. Your thoughts are unclear.****

“We’re viral. Gone viral.” Eddie groaned.

****Popular?** **

“In the vein of Elvis-faked-his-death-conspiracy theories, sure.”

 ** _ ** _Popular._**_** Venom slipped back into Eddie’s skin. ****Not losers anymore.****

“Sure, bud.” Eddie rolled over, but he was wide awake now, Venom knew. “Sure.”

****Eddie.** **

Eddie responded with a monosyllabic grunt. Venom pushed the images over to Eddie’s side of their consciousness. ****Look what I found.****

“Wh--”

Venom slipped out once more, rolling Eddie onto his back. His host, his perfect, stupid host whom the world had treated so poorly, was blushing furiously as Venom tugged at his boxers.

Venom loved him for it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://legiion.co.vu/), too.


End file.
